


Immersed

by RedTeamShark



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Author Chose Not To Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2019-09-12 03:36:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: Alone in the woods, at night, with only a torch to guide them. The mission is simple: find eight papers and they’re free. It couldn’t be that hard, right?





	Immersed

**Author's Note:**

> Proper warnings, tags, etc, may come in the future. For the time being I'm frantically transferring my content to a stable platform amidst growing concerns about tumblr's inevitable implosion.
> 
> Apologies for flooding the fandom page.

“So you know this is bullshit, right?”

“Shut the hell up and get Gavin on your shoulders.”

“Wait, we seriously have to do that?”

“He’ll crush my gennies!”

Burnie sighed, rubbing his temples. “Alright, fine, we’ll skip the shoulders part. But Gavin gets to hold the flashlight and choose the direction. You just lead the way, Michael.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, we’re gonna get lost in here.”

Gavin grinned, swinging an arm around Michael’s shoulder and shining the flashlight into his face. “This is gonna be top, Michael!”

“Hey, focus, both of you.” Burnie clapped his hands, nodding behind him. “We have the monitoring station all set. Don’t touch any cameras you find. Just pick up the papers before the sun comes up. Keep your mics on and your cameras clear.” He paused, stepping to the other side of the high, chain link fence that surrounded the rented area. “And don’t assault the guy.”

“Wait, guy?” Michael asked, frowning.

Burnie shut the gate, padlocking it with a firm  _click_. “Good luck.”

“Guy?” Gavin repeated, turning to his fellow  _Immersion_  test subject. “No one said anything about a guy.”

Shoulders slumping, Michael only shrugged. “I dunno.” He waved a hand, turning towards the expanse of dark woods before them. “Come on, let’s get this shit over with. Lead the way, Gavin.”

–

Whoever had been in charge of set design certainly had gotten the atmosphere right. Michael and Gavin crept along through the trees, leaves and branches crunching under their shoes, the flashlight darting this way and that. So far they hadn’t found any papers, but the air was still tense, both men breathing just a bit quicker than the amount of effort they were exerting strictly called for. Gavin’s free hand was clasped tightly around his wrist, his shuffling feet occasionally bumping into the back of Michael’s shoes as they moved through the woods.

He felt  _watched_ , which made sense on a logical level because he was being watched, it was made clear that there were cameras all over the place even if he couldn’t see them, and someone was monitoring the cameras. But on a deeper level, he didn’t feel like he was on camera, being watched by one of his friends and co-workers back at the control room. It was like there was someone—or some _thing_ —behind every tree, only there in the corner of his eye, winking out of existence if he tried to get a real look at it.

It was suitably creepy.

“Michael, what’s that?” Gavin whispered against his ear, pulling his wrist gently before darting the flashlight to the left. Michael turned to look, furrowing his brows and frowning.

“Looks like a truck.”

“What kind of truck?”

“Dude, don’t make me fucking hit you before we even get the first page.” The curly-haired man sighed, lifting his free hand to rub his temples before heading in the direction the flashlight was pointing. They strafed around the truck, coming to a dead stop as the beam of light illuminated a single white sheet of paper. The flashlight beam jittered slightly in Gavin’s grasp and Michael reached back, setting a hand on his wrist without looking. “Hey, calm down. We already found one, we only need… what, seven more?”

“I don’t want to pick it up.” Gavin’s voice wasn’t necessarily quiet, but it was  _small_ , tight with worry and squeaky with barely-contained panic.

“Dude, don’t be a baby. We have to in order to win the stupid game.” Michael rolled his eyes, grabbing the paper and stuffing it into his pocket without reading it.

“But this is how it always starts in the horror movies! Two damn idiots faffing about in the woods and then—“

Whatever happened next in the horror movies Gavin watched, Michael never found out. A loud chord of music cut off the Brit’s words, seeming to come from everywhere around them at once. It faded slowly, silence overtaking them for a beat before a low, steady pulsing sound began. It sounded like a heartbeat, but the slow, steady nature immediately quashed the idea that it might be his own heartbeat in his ears.

Michael and Gavin exchanged a look and a single word. “RUN!”

–

“Gavin, keep up!”

“Michael, please, I can’t—“ Gavin pitched forward into him and Michael’s back slammed into cold, rough concrete, knocking the breath from his lungs. The Brit leaned on him, panting and shaking, unaware of his friend’s struggles to get air back into his lungs. After a few moments he stepped back, frowning. “Are you okay?”

With a whooping gasp, Michael felt sweet relief of oxygen flood him again, and he immediately shoved the other man’s shoulders. “No thanks to you! You slammed me into a wall!”

“I tripped over something! Also, what’s a wall doing in the bloody woods?!”

Whatever retort Michael had been about to spout was cut off, his gaze following the beam of Gavin’s flashlight as it ran along the wall, illuminating a doorway a few feet away from them. He swallowed, closing his hand over Gavin’s again and sighing. “I guess we’re going there next.”

“I don’t like this, Michael. I have a bad feeling about this place.”

The older man rolled his eyes. “ _This_  is the part that gives you the bad feeling? Seriously?”

“Well yeah!” Still, he let himself be led inside, carefully moving the flashlight beam along the empty corridors. “I don’t like this place. I-I’m gonna close my eyes when we go around corners.”

“If you scream in my ear and make me go deaf, I’m going to punch you in the stomach.” Their fingers locked together tighter as they approached a corner, though, both men squeezing almost convulsively. “Close your eyes and keep the flashlight beam steady. I’m going to pull us around there.” Michael whispered, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.

They eased around the corner, the curly-haired man giving a sigh of relief. “All clear. Let’s move fo—“ Static filled their ears, both of them screaming, running blindly down the twisting and turning hallways until the sound had faded completely. They leaned on a dead-end wall, panting and not quite daring to look behind them.

Gavin had shut the flashlight off at some point, and he turned it on again, shrieking and clicking it off immediately. Spots flashed in front of Michael’s eyes and his ears were ringing. “What the fuck, man.”

“There’s a page here.” The Brit stage-whispered, working his sweaty fingers free of Michael’s, moving his hand up his arm. “There’s a page here and I don’t want to do this anymore, Michael, I want to get out.” He grabbed onto the collar of Michael’s shirt, pulling him closer.

“Hey, hey, relax…” Michael murmured, slipping an arm over Gavin’s shoulders and rubbing his back. “It’s just for fun, remember? Calm the fuck down, we’re fine.”

Taking a shaky breath, the younger man nodded. “Yeah, you… you’re right. I guess it’s just sort of getting to me.” He turned the flashlight back on, illuminating the page tacked to the wall. When Michael picked it up and shoved it back into his pocket, Gavin turned away from the wall. “I hope we can find our way out of this building.”

“We’ll be fine.”

They moved back down the corridor, rounding the corner casually, both coming to a dead stop as static burst into their ears again. In front of them stood an imposingly tall man in a suit with a white stocking over his face. Michael only saw him for a moment before Gavin screamed and turned the flashlight off and they both began to run, hands still linked, but he had the distinct impression that there was something  _wrong_  with the guy.

Most of the run was a blur, the pair crashing into the chain-link fence some time later, screaming to be let out. They nearly climbed it before someone approached from the other side, telling them to calm down and use the gate.

Sitting on the back of Burnie’s truck, drinking coffee and getting themselves back under control, they shared a sheepish laugh at how stupid they’d been.

“It was pretty intense, though.” Gavin noted as Burnie walked over, making a face at him. “The guy you had in there was pretty scary looking.”

The curly-haired man frowned, shaking his head. “We didn’t send anyone in. He wasn’t supposed to show up until you had three pages.”

Michael scoffed. “Very funny, Burns. We ran into him after we grabbed the second one.”

“You two got the second page, rounded a corner, and freaked out. Then you ran outside and back to the gate. We have the footage of it.” Something in Burnie’s voice made Michael and Gavin exchange a look, their hands linking together again instinctively. “You two saw someone in there?”

“It must have just been the mood getting to us.” Michael answered quickly, shaking his head.

When he and Gavin reviewed the footage later, it was just as Burnie said—the two of them picking up the page, rounding a corner, freaking out and running away. They looked at each other, wide-eyed, replaying the scene a few times. Finally, Gavin pointed to the screen.

“Why’s it get all staticky when we round the corner?” He questioned, queuing up the different angles of the shot. “All of them do, so it’s not just the one camera.”

“You know what?” Michael leaned back, tucking his arms behind his head. “I don’t wanna fuckin’ think about it. I don’t want to know. I never want to have anything to do with this game again.”

Gavin nodded. “Me either.”


End file.
